What does it mean to say that rural areas of Africa are poor? Many people insist that in rural African populations poverty is prevalent. This is either because the smallholder agricultural practices are unproductive or it is because economic policies have not protected and promoted African...

This dissertation takes a welfare perspective to analyze how rural households in developing countries manage risks ex-ante and cope with shocks ex-post. The first part looks at risk-coping strategies and analyzes the socio-economic consequences of AIDS-related mortality in rural sub-Saharan...

In economic literature insurance networks are often treated as exogenous institutions. Frequently, the assumption is made that some clearly identifiable group (e.g. ‘the whole village’ or ‘the extended family’) constitutes an insurance network. Still, theory suggests that the formation...

This paper analyses the association between household characteristics' in particular size and location, and for the household head age, sector of employment (and the tariff applicable to that sector) and education - and household income using data from the Tanzania Household Budget Survey for...